


My Impersonal Life

by cryptonomicon



Series: Pick Up The Pieces [1]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Beta Bucky Barnes, Developing Relationship, Eventual Smut, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, Genius Shuri (Marvel), Hurt Stephen Strange, M/M, Multi, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Stephen Strange, Protective Avengers, Romantic Friendship, Slow Romance, Stephen Strange & Wong Friendship, Wong is a Good Bro (Marvel), fluff without remorse we die like heathens, rarepairs are the only pairs stephen strange has tell me i'm wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:06:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23195989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptonomicon/pseuds/cryptonomicon
Summary: Bucky Barnes had waited beyond his natural life to be with his mate. Given that, one mate was enough. Full triads in the 21st Century were rare at best and completely unnecessary at worst. Hence, what he had was more than he could have ever asked for given his circumstances and life experience.But perhaps he had underestimated his chances, or just how far reality could bend to give him a chance at what he'd always hoped for: a triad, between himself, his alpha, and perhaps the most unexpected omega imaginable.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Stephen Strange
Series: Pick Up The Pieces [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689883
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	1. What Are The Powers That Pull At Your Heel

It had been a short list that he and Shuri had come up with, of people in New York who he could talk to after he and Steve had finally landed a flat in Brooklyn, and he still didn’t know how he felt about some of the names on it.

It had been bittersweet, moving in together after what felt like lifetimes. _Were_ lifetimes, to some people. Both of them had needed to start anew. And even if it was a homecoming to Brooklyn, it was still a new endeavor, building their life together rather than trying to just make room. For two mates finally ready to be together, it just wasn’t enough to squeeze one another into the gaps in their preexisting routines. Bucky had tried it after Sarah passed, and Steve had tried after they’d been granted permission to re-enter the United States. 

After everything that they’d been through and done, and the aftereffects of the reverse of the Snap settled, the Accords committee that made the decision leading to them being back in New York had been predictably lenient. The reunification of the Avengers and their joint testimonies had been more than enough to shut down even Secretary Ross’ most passionate hems and haws. And in the spirit of that freedom, he and Steve had agreed to take whatever steps came next together. 

He’d still been uncertain about leaving Wakanda, until Shuri had all but chased him out of the country. Something to the tune of getting their “old white man romance” out of her face. But she had agreed to keep in touch and remain his primary therapist, under the condition that he also reached out to others to keep from getting too isolated. He loved his blond alpha, even now he was not so little anymore, but Shuri was right in reminding him that he needed others as well.

Even though they’d reached a point of functional armistice, he still didn’t feel comfortable with cozying up to Banner or Stark even though Shuri had demanded their presence on his list. Between Banner’s new publicity and Stark’s well-earned retirement, he figured they deserved a rest from the millstone of team-running. And while Stark was still funding the team, his self-demotion to “retiree consultant” was final and irrevocable. 

People like Maximoff, Romanoff, and Barton had been kept from the list entirely given Shuri had correctly identified any conversation with them nowhere near therapeutic in nature. Not bad, necessarily, but not exactly a clement, forward-thinking environment for him.

The outer space cadre was, well. Rather self-explanatorily absent.

Sam was his and Steve’s drinking buddy, which _did_ apparently count. And the pilot had and would undoubtedly continue to laugh at the prospect of being on-call as a part-time shrink. 

He’d been a little baffled that Shuri had included Peter, but she’d been right in a way. If he could get the kid to sit still for 2.5 seconds he was actually insightful and attentive. To frankly surprising degrees. Going on walks and dumpster diving with him had become an odd but welcome occurrence.

Today’s venture into his continued mental health was the last person on his short list. He didn’t know a lot about Strange given the closest they’d ever gotten had been being on the same battlefield, but Shuri apparently did. And she didn’t level just any old white dude a compliment to the extent of “even I felt the loss when he left medicine” without reason. 

Steve had a slightly different opinion on the man, based on the few mandatory meetings he turned up to when he wasn’t off in Oz or whatever the hell monastery his order worked out of. Steve found his manner brusque and the opaqueness of his work frustrating, but otherwise thought him a useful resource and someone he would have liked to get to know better, largely for team-building purposes.

Bucky had nonetheless been warned that he could have quite a sharp tongue, but when he’d called the number listed in the team directory - a number Stark was to thank for, after apparently forcing a Stark-phone on the man after refusing to send summons by raven - Strange had been clement and agreeable. And though he supposed he should have known from his being on the list that he was in the area, the address of the wizard’s abode being on Bleecker Street of all places had surprised him immensely.

When he saw the hulking old building he was slightly less surprised, given it all but screamed ‘haunted mansion.’ He also remembered, and he was quite certain it wasn’t mistakenly, that the exact building had been there for many, _many_ years. He had memories of seeing it not only as the Winter Soldier, but also as a child when he and Steve had gone to Washington Square to read the poetry tacked to the wooden fences. The Village hadn’t changed as much as some parts of New York - the high, cloistered buildings were the same, the sidewalk fruit vendors, the park artists with their paintings lined out.

And that old looming house on Bleecker Street, where apparently wizards had lived all along.

Not this wizard exactly, he knew. He had read Strange’s file like he’d read the rest of the team’s. They weren’t full depth given some information was either missing or classified and the magician had a fair amount of both, but Bucky knew the other man couldn’t have been in the Village when he and Steve were kids because he hadn’t been born until ‘77.

Then again, maybe wizards could time travel. Who was he to say.

It still felt odd, knocking on the old lead glass doors and watching other pedestrians toddle on by in the mid afternoon sunshine. None the wiser for the wizard or the assassin at his door.

Strange was in civvies when he came to the breezeway, cutting a very different picture than Bucky was used to from him. His usual robes or whatever they were - and the cloak that he could swear had waved at him once - gave him an imposing, Vincent Price air. Which he didn’t mind - he and Steve had loved sneaking in to see his movies. Nor did it feel out of place, given he was in fact a sorcerer and Vincent Price had always toed that line of being not quite normal.

But seeing him in lean dark wash jeans and a _Columbia Lions_ raglan, bare feet and all, made him look… _young_.

“Sergeant Barnes,” he greeted, standing aside with a gregarious sweep of his arm. “Welcome to the Sanctum Sanctorum.”

“Do I need to call you “doctor,” since we’re working in rank?” he asked, wondering if he should toe off his shoes, but he didn’t see anyone else’s by the door, so he assumed it wasn’t necessary.

The man’s chuckle was surprisingly gentle. “No. You’ve seen me in my _Lions_ shirt, fresh out of a shower to get a truly prodigious amount of neon pink slime off my general person. The doctor is out, I’m afraid.” He followed Bucky into the foyer where he’d wandered, ogling the stunning woodwork and towering staircases. Everything from the ornate paneling on the floors to the gilt chandeliers told of a house cobbled together from time itself, and deep love. 

He didn’t even bother to wonder if the building was bigger on the inside than on the outside: it just had to be. 

When he finally looked back at Strange, the man had an amused pinch around his eyes, apparently having waited for the soldier’s curiosity to be piqued at his statement. He had to admit he’d been too impressed with the place at first to pay attention to it, but he looked at the man questioningly as _pink slime_ sank in finally. “Stephen will do.”

“Bucky, then,” he replied, offering his normal hand. He doubted Strange was the type to look at his arm as a mechanical marvel - like Stark or Peter - but he knew the man also had a disability with his own hands, and not risking gripping too hard on accident seemed the safer bet.

The handshake was light and stiff, but Stephen’s face was closed off to any indication of discomfort. Which might itself have been an expression of discomfort, but Bucky didn’t linger on it. He was too busy noting the crisp tang of the man’s scent now that he was in close quarters. He smelled more like his soaps given he was freshly washed, but whatever was underneath was still surprisingly pleasant.

“Well,” the other man said once the motion was completed, tucking his hands back into his pockets and cocking one hip. A man in lounge clothes shouldn’t have fit in so well with the house’s patrician decor, but somehow he just felt like another piece of its collected ages. “Shall we retreat to somewhere more comfortable?”

Bucky shrugged, unzipping his blouson to welcome the transition to a less imposing room. “Sure. Unless we want to park it on the stairs like we’re talking on the stoop.” It wouldn’t be the worst arrangement, but he had the impression the magician could use a break and a softer seat. Even though his manner felt young given his dress, there were still long lines framing his eyes that spoke of a need of several long nights of sleep.

“We can do slightly better than that,” the other man assured, leading the way down a corridor to the left of the foyer. None of the doors matched, leaving the eyeline of the hallway confused, but interesting. He was sure that sorcerers could and did spend their entire lives in these buildings without seeing all of them, or understanding why or how portraits and artifacts had made their way into the house.

“I have to admit I’m surprised you agreed to chat with me. I’ve been told you’re…” _Stuffy? **Not** possibly unfairly attractive when you want to be_? 

“I’m sure the word “aloof” has been thrown around in describing me,” Stephen agreed, leading the way down the hall and into a sunny study. There was a step up to a raised part of the room toward the back, where a sprawling desk was strewn with scrolls and books, and a brass bar cart sat near one shelf cleared of books to make room for bottles in the floor-to-ceiling cases that lined an entire wall. The lower part of the room, at the same level as the door, was home to a hodgepodge collection of lovable looking couches and chairs, and a coffee table with slightly more civilian looking clutter. Magazines, a pitcher of water and little drinking glasses, and a bowl filled with lemon drops. “Along with words like “weird” and “asshole.”

“I don’t know, Pete is pretty complimentary of you,” he addressed, feeling more comfortable than he had ever thought to expect considering he was dealing with a literal wizard and a possibly haunted but in the least impossible house. The room exuded a sense of being loved and well-lived in, rather than the sometimes cold austerity of rooms designed to look good.

Strange looked surprised when he turned back to face him. “I didn’t realize you and Peter were acquainted,” he said.

“Ironically, Peter is another on my therapy call list,” he explained, walking over to the chaise when Strange beckoned him in its direction as the magician retrieved a mug from the desk. “He’s a good kid. And fun to talk to when he’s not running a mile a minute.”

“He is,” Stephen confirmed, and somehow it wasn’t difficult in the slightest to imagine the teen crashing in now and again to drink hot cocoa and bug Strange into grudgingly submitting to his inherent charismatic charm. “He’s been handed a lot for someone his age to deal with, but he’s done exemplary all things considered.” Strange smirked then, sitting down in a silver damask bergère just to the left of where Bucky had taken up residence at the corner of the deep emerald chaise lounge to the right of the fireplace. The sun beaming in from the windows was warm on his shoulders and neck, and the position gave him full view of the room and its exits. “But I wouldn’t necessarily call him discerning when it comes to character assessments.”

Bucky chuckled in agreement as he popped the lemon drop he’d pilfered onto his tongue, wondering at how good Strange himself seemed to be at reading people. Or perhaps he just did his homework. “I can’t say you’re entirely wrong or entirely right about that.”

“And what about you?” Stephen asked, his tone still conversational but the attentiveness on his face obviously no longer directed at the subject of Peter. Bucky didn’t have to wait for Stephen to elaborate - as soon as the man saw he’d caught his attention he continued. “How do you feel you’re doing with making your own character assessments again?”

“It’s gotten easier and easier the more time I spend in my own head without relapsing,” he answered honestly, which was surprisingly simple considering even with Sam and Peter he often curtailed his answers. But Strange was a highly-recommended professional, and somewhere in his mind he must have taken that to heart, because he didn’t have the niggling feeling he should spare him the gory details. The man had had his hands in other peoples’ brains before - gory details were rather his business. “I feel like the more time I spend making domestic decisions the easier it is to differentiate what’s real.”

“I would imagine that field work invokes stronger memories of your years as the Winter Soldier.” Strange took a swig of his coffee, the wide cup cradled in both of his hands. The scarring, which Bucky had only heard tell of up until that point, was bright and angry that day. Whatever dimension he’d just gotten back from, the exertion was apparently wreaking havoc on his inflammation. The scar tissue on his shoulder often acted up in the same way, regardless of the super soldier serum’s overall improvements to his health and recuperative abilities. 

The notion of being just a regular old human and living with that level of chronic pain struck a pang of sympathy through him.

“At least anymore, I tend not to lose myself when it’s work with a team.” He glanced at the coffee table when a subtle motion caught his eye, and realized that a steaming mug was there that hadn’t been before. It smelled like the exact mix of noon chai he’d been absently thinking about on the way over.

“Reading my mind, doc?” 

Stephen shrugged. “I summoned the mug, but it filled according to what you wanted. Makes things easier - I’m not the best waiter,” he said with a soft smile. “I tend to spill more than I save.” He nodded toward the contents. “What did it pick for you?”

“It’s a Kashmiri style tea. I was just thinking about it this morning.” He raised the cup to his host. “Here’s to your psychic dishes.”

“Chin chin.”

“What about you?” he asked of Strange’s own mug, figuring a bit of less serious repartee wouldn’t hurt either of them. The wizard seemed to have a lot on his plate, and a full-on therapy session wasn’t what Bucky needed or wanted so much as a first step in establishing a working acquaintanceship between the two of them.

Stephen’s smirk curled enough to highlight that he had dimples when he was really trying to hide a smile, though it looked vaguely guilty under gently furrowed brows. “It’s Irish coffee, I’ll confess,” he answered. “Not the most responsible thing for eleven in the morning, but.”

“In hero terms, you just got off work,” Bucky offered, conspiring and understanding. It didn’t matter what time he got home from hard missions - he considered himself entitled to a beer when averting global catastrophes made impossible chaos out of any schedule he might try to establish. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what Strange’s work did for his hours. “What were you up to, if you don’t mind my asking? No one’s really clear on what you… do.”

 _Save Stark, who’s uncharacteristically mum about what you’re capable of_.

The other man let out a sigh, but it was a conversational one rather than the sound of someone aggrieved by an impertinent inquiry. Bucky could see why people found him aloof - in public spheres and in the field he was the paragon of a serious professional - but here in his own space, his manners were surprisingly open and easy to read. He was realizing that, quite likely, Strange just let people think he was aloof so he risked fewer people knowing him like he was now.

“I was at an interstellar peace summit a few dimensions over.” His mug perched on one knee, he reached up to knead at his neck with his free hand. The scowl turned humorous, but not necessarily more amused. “And if there’s one thing I’ve never had the patience for, it’s diplomatic chicanery. Let alone almost two weeks of it.”

Bucky’s brows raised instinctively. “We saw you at a meeting last week.”

“You may have to get used to the fact that time doesn’t always follow the rules in my presence.”

“So you were dealing with aliens and other species?” A moment too late he remembered that he too had now officially dealt with aliens of varying stripes, and Strange’s entertained but nonplussed expression told him just how far his enthusiasm went. He wagged a hand at him. “Yeah, I know. It doesn’t mean it’s not new and weird. Up until recently it was just us here on this little blue speck. When I was growing up I never could have imagined we’d walk on the moon, and even if it’s old news now I don’t think its any less cool.”

“One of these days I’m going to have to give the Avengers a talk on the history magic has with alien races.” The aloofness was back, but it was a natural shift into professorial interest rather than a retreat from any other kind of conversation. But the focus looked good on him, if somewhat at odds with the easy loungewear.

“Well,” Bucky said, leaning his weight back into the couch and looking the other man intently over. His final temporary assessment: _better than expected_. “I’m all ears.”

Stephen blinked at him, and he had the very clear impression that he’d just ruffled an owl’s feathers in all the wrong directions. His curiosity about the other man’s work had been serious, and while he didn’t feel uncomfortable talking to him if and when he wanted to about his mental state, he was more drawn in by the opportunity to finally get a bead on him. The warmth of the house and the unusual softness of their exchange was drawing him in in a way he hadn’t anticipated, and while he had the other off his usual serious footing, he figured he might as well make good use of the opportunity.

And in any case, the tea was fantastic. Staying on for an Irish coffee sounded damn good, too.

“Besides, I’ve gotta know. Pink slime?” 

This time Stephen smiled outright, a surprisingly rumbling chuckle bubbling up from his chest. It struck him in that moment that based on his behavior and mannerisms, and even the very faint scent that he was just starting to recognize, Bucky had no idea what his secondary gender was. Not that it was particularly his business, but after having an eye and a skill for chasing tail back in his youth, he was undeniably intrigued by the fact that he couldn’t put his finger on Strange whatsoever.

“Oh, this I do believe you’ll enjoy,” the other promised, still smiling around the lip of his mug.

Bucky was all too ready to agree with him.


	2. We Stood At The Crest Of Summer

"Stephen?" he called, in awe of the brightness in the house as he came in. She seemed jubilant that day, fresh breezes and beaming sunlight turning her usual, knowing kind of menace into nearly twinkling gaiety. 

In the small alcove to the right of the main staircase, where Stephen and Wong kept their bitching vigils during wakeful nights, an old record player had been set out on the Korean tea table. A crate of records was half-empty nearby, the other missing half strewn across every surface in proximity, in and out of their sleeves.

The one on the turntable, spinning as lazily as the world, sounded like pop from an age ago. The kind that anyone from any era could listen to because it was just well-made and friendly. The kind that Steve would like even without context, because he’d been a stickler about getting to know Marvin Gaye, James Brown, and Eartha Kitt, just like he had with Josephine Baker back in the day. Which meant that it either didn’t need a context, or had a universal enough one to survive the passing of generations.

He liked it, he decided. The whole picture.

Fresh air in the halls from lord knew where, mixing crisp sea brine and the sweetness of deep inland growth - crashing waves and fresh blooms all at once. The quiet crackle from _real vinyl_ , still around after all these years, and obviously loved given the cleaning fluid and brushes left vigilantly on the table. And the noticeably subtle shift of decor, indicating some manner of spring cleaning taking place he was quite sure other sorcerers had been too self-absorbed or too afraid to attempt in the past.

And, overall, the smell of Stephen right in the middle of it. From the faint impression of sprouting plants in early summer, to the dust on the vinyl sleeves, to the half muffin left on a plate next to a teacup of coffee. His presence sang out in everything.

Bucky was smiling before he knew it, and under the protection of this house and its master, he didn’t give a single damn.

“Coming!” a familiar voice bellowed from far beyond the top level of the foyer stairs. 

He crossed to the alcove in the meantime, looking down at the cover artwork of decades of music he’d never gotten to enjoy. Helplessly warmed, he picked up a short stack with benevolence and slotted through their artist and album names, reveling in the harmlessness of their fame and their now-anonymity. 

Humanity - gentle, mundane humanity - had been there, done that, got the hallucinogenic peanuts, _thank you_. During all the years he’d spent as someone else’s tool, as another agenda’s weapon, this too had still persisted. And it was Stephen Strange of all people, the King of the Weird, to be re-teaching him, without even meaning to, what it meant to recognize and appreciate _Three Dog Night_.

He was in jeans again, and a strapping slate _Queen_ t-shirt easily two sizes too big when he came plodding down the stairs. If Stephen had ever banked on getting fat in his old age, Bucky couldn’t help but wonder why. His waist could have fit into skirts slimmer than he’d seen in the 1940s, though he’d declined to pass on that observation to the other.

“I’m deep-cleaning,” he said by way of explanation, making a bee-line to the pastry Bucky had posted himself next to. Three preposterously large mouthfuls in, he finally swallowed enough coffee to elaborate. “Which means dusting and moving _everything_ in here that doesn’t want to be dusted or moved.”

A faint, entirely too-charming musical tinkling sounded behind them, and out of the corner of his eye he could have sworn a short, luminescent scaled unicorn passed by. _Laughing_.

“And, sometimes, shampooing things that _love_ being moved,” the other brunet continued through a slightly less worrisome mouthful. “That’s Kim, by the way. She’ll snuggle with you if you sit down for more than two seconds. I’ve got to relocate a haunted piano in a second, but Peter can keep you company if you brought lunch. He’s moved plinths into the greenhouse all morning so he’ll be starving.” 

The wizard bounded up the stairs and back out of sight before Bucky could even offer him the foot-long poor boy with vinaigrette and no yellow mustard he’d brought for him.

The muffin was now gone, but there a few chocolate chips left in its wake. Bucky ate them vaguely vengefully, but thereafter carefully unloaded the smorgasbord of sandwich samples he’d brought from the local deli for Stephen and Wong, and now apparently Peter. Including an outright jar of their favorite bread ‘n butter pickle spears, and more kinds of chips than he knew existed.

He cleared some of the records away carefully as he set out the sandwiches, and by the time he’d made a spot for himself on the short couch, he’d been rejoined by the little unicorn, who walked around him with steps that sounded like wind chimes. As he uncapped the aus jus and stole a section of the French dip, Peter came swinging down from the upper galleries.

“Hey Mr. Barnes!” he greeted, sticking an impossible and ostentatious landing on the back of a windsor chair without even so much as making it teeter. “I see you met Kim. Stephen said you brought lunch. Thank god!” His hand dove for a section of the barbecue pulled pork. “We’ve been moving and cleaning stuff for _hours_.”

“You don’t get to complain,” Wong’s voice intruded as he waddled sorely in from one of the infinite hallways offshooting the foyer. He was rubbing his back, glaring at Peter before picking up the unicorn when it scampered to his feet, chittering at him. “You’ve only been here this morning. He’s been at this for _days_.”

Bucky held out a section of tuna melt to the other sorcerer, chuckling. “I came just in time then. Sounds like you guys were in need of rescuing.”

“Rescuing my ass,” Stephen muttered as he came back down the stairs, brushing his hands against his jeans. “Treating cleaning like it’s climbing goddamn Everest.”

“No one has cleaned an entire Sanctum in _centuries_ , Strange,” Wong said, gesticulating with his sandwich and balancing the small mythical creature in the other arm. It struck Bucky that it would make for a damn strange Renaissance style painting, that particular image, but it would stick in his mind forever. “For good reason!”

“Their loss,” Stephen said with a shrug, stealing a pickle from the jar Bucky had opened for them. His hands were shakier than usual, but Bucky guessed it was just from the activity and exertion rather than anything nefarious. “I found a lost Van Gogh this morning in a damn broom cupboard! You can’t tell me that wasn’t worth it. It’s literally priceless.”

Wong grunted, taking an emphatically large bite out of his sandwich section. He might not have a counter-argument, but that also didn’t preclude him from his complaint.

“I could have done without the haunted piano,” Peter argued, grimacing and pulling a bag of Cheetos open. “The _psychic_ haunted piano.”

Stephen reached down and picked up the records next to Bucky, piling them on another stack and sitting down at his side on the loveseat. He used the opportunity to fish out the poor boy, handing it to Stephen as Peter continued to squawk to Wong about the song it had started playing when he'd been in its vicinity, which apparently was some kind of internet phenomenon now ruined for him forever.

The wizard looked down at the sandwich in surprise, taking it carefully and unwrapping methodically. The smile on his face was winning when he realized the contents, and Bucky felt a bright flutter of pleasure unfurl in his heart.

“Thanks for bringing lunch,” Stephen said, bumping against his shoulder amiably before taking a bite out of his sandwich. 

Bucky bumped him back gently. “So what’s with the cleaning spree?” he asked, dipping his own sandwich to distract himself from the blue of Stephen’s eyes.

Stephen shrugged, swiping a bead of mayo from his lip with the pad of one thumb. He was playing at nonchalance, but the pinking on his ears told a different story. “Figured since I’m getting visitors more often, it would be a good idea to take stock and organize so every other linen cupboard isn’t a health hazard.”

“Oh no,” Wong muttered, and Stephen was suddenly glaring daggers at him. “You found my herb closet, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I damn well did! And why the hell was there a Beta Pictoris solar crab _suspended in Jell-o_ in there?” Bucky and Peter burst out laughing in unison at Wong’s indignant sniff, even as the man got a blaming look from the unicorn still in his arm. He let himself be wrapped up in the song quietly playing, Peter and Wong’s chatter, and the warmth of Stephen at his side, feeling so intensely _himself_ and happy that he didn’t even bother to wonder how long it would last. He had it, here and now, and that was enough.

_And if I were the king of the world, tell you what I’d do: I’d throw away the cars and the bars and the war, and make sweet love to you…_

۞ ★ ۞

Stephen had been out of town for more than a month, and there were sparing weeks around that period on either side before Bucky got to spend enough time to hear more of his stories. It had been rather an abrupt and painful transition, going from seeing him nearly every other week on a more or less social basis - and largely to finally talk over his mental state and acclimatization to cogent life as himself - to such a long hiatus.

He had supposed after a time that it had been the steady reliance on Stephen’s accessible acquaintanceship that had made the transition odd. It didn’t take him long to realize thereafter that he just _missed_ him, of all the people he still had to call on his list in the meantime.

Hell, he had even gotten used to texting Stephen for recommendations: for authors, or book franchises, or band-break-ups-that-were-better-than-the-originals, or TV show reboots worth their salt. Though often Bucky disguised asking for those insights as advice for Peter or Steve, or anything to help get himself to sleep when he was feeling out of time. 

The wizard, of all people, came through every time. 

Until he didn’t. Or, as he came to know, _couldn’t_.

Him being gone, out of reception in the most real way feasible, should not have come as a surprise. It really shouldn’t, given the at least somewhat accurate picture he had of the magician’s life and responsibilities after so many conversations. Of the Avengers ranks, he and Stark probably understood it best, followed closely by Peter. And in the beginning - when his absence hadn’t even been noted by many, including Steve - their lack of professional concern had been well-founded.

Granted, Peter’s worry had been nearly implicit, given the young man worried if Bucky didn’t text him back within twelve hours, so his concern had largely passed by his radar. Stark’s was more neutral, but vigilant given he’d sent everyone a text asking to hear from them if they heard from Strange, under the vague auspices he needed to consult with him on something whenever he got back.

Wong’s worry, however, was what had tipped him off that it wasn’t just missing the friendship that characterized his discomfort. Stephen had been gone too long by everyone’s standards - not just his.

Yet Bucky’s rose-colored glasses had only finally been yanked off when he found out at long last that Strange had been nearly a week in upper-state New York, at the newly-minted Avengers compound. On the verge of systematic organ failure from mass, unknown radiation exposure. 

Which was why he hadn’t been answering Bucky’s texts. Or, as it turned out, anyone else’s.

He’d cleared it with Stark over a video call first, on his own and strictly on a basis of wanting to see Stephen socially. Tony didn’t ask, and claimed he hadn’t planned on being there himself, so his request to the compound had been summarily approved. It would have been anyway, he knew. As an official member of the Avengers he now had clearance, but he still thought it polite - particularly since Stark had some attachment to Strange, of one type or another - to give reason and notice for his randomly appearing.

Bucky owed Tony that, at the very least. They all had their traumas, and he could recognize that whether or not it was by his own volition, he would always be one of Stark’s.

The Avengers estate was back to its usual amounts of busy with new recruits and research teams finally giving the place a sense of being useful after so many months lying empty during reconstruction, but the medical wing was quiet when he got there. The team hadn’t had a major problem since before Strange had gone off the radar, so his was the only room occupied.

Stephen wasn’t on a respirator when Bucky entered the suite, but that didn’t make the oxygen mask over his mouth and nose any prettier.

He had to admit his surprise when he found that Stephen wasn’t alone, and not just with an attending nurse. Instead it was Stark himself, seeming unusually comfortable in the chair by his bedside, fiddling with a stylus and tablet as if a hospital room was as normal a place to find him as any other.

Bucky nodded to him as he entered, and Stark looked up at the live readouts of Strange’s vitals while Bucky took up a chair on the other side of the bed and let the unfamiliar state of his friend sink in.

Stephen’s skin was mottled - marble pale and a slightly too-bright purple in unnatural veining. And regardless of the heating blankets and insulating pads heaped around him, his body temperature was miserably low according to the screens, leaving him shivering and his breathing more akin to shallow panting.

The sight made every rib in his chest feel like it had folded in half.

“Fuck,” was what came out first, and Tony chuffed at him, far from disagreeing with the sentiment. “Do we know what happened?”

“Nope.” Stark’s peculiar brand of humor wasn’t present in that statement, even if it was still coolly nonchalant. “He fell out of a portal here in the medical wing and went straight into a seizure. Hasn’t been conscious since.”

It did seem in perfect Stephen fashion to drop himself exactly where he needed to be, probably with the last ditch of every ounce of energy he had left. “Wong was the one who told me he was here when I got through,” he said. “I take it he’s been checking in.”

“He’s all but leading the charge on this one. We have the best medical minds in the world, but at this point it’s not much better than putative care since none of us have a fucking clue how to deal with this. Wong called it a dimensional possession.” Tony’s grimace told how much that choice of words pained his scientific sensibilities. “Some kind of magic or soul scarring from exposure to a psychically malevolent environment or other comparative gobbledygook.”

“And what do you call it?”

“One hell of an isolated radiation phenomenon… that isn’t acting according to the laws of nature or physics, which I _hate_ to admit might mean that my description is the wrong one.” He took off his HUD glasses, folding them into his lap with his tablet and rolling his neck. “He’s not _emitting_ anything which is why it’s even safe to be here, and the radiation is being processed out by _something_ in his system, just. Very slowly.”

“And causing damage to his organs all the while, I assume,” Bucky said.

“Sort of. It is causing damage, but his body is persistently holding the line of healing just enough not to cascade into systematic failure. And in any lesser sense, I wouldn’t admit it was magic so much as misunderstood pseudoscience. But even Helen Cho is baffled - his cells are regenerating on a vector that has nothing to do with any science of ours.” There was something bittersweet and almost pleased in Stark’s tone, and Bucky understood that as frustrating and baffling as his current condition was, the presence of a miracle was not being discounted, nor going unappreciated.

“Will he pull through?” Bucky asked, pushing down the suddenly intense desire to reach out and try to soothe the sorcerer. Regardless of the fact he knew there wasn’t any touch or kind word that could reach him, the urge arose all the same. 

Tony smirked, but it was still drawn and worried. “Probably,” he said, his smile curling a little more genuinely as he spoke directly at Stephen. “Stubborn old goat.”

He chuckled, knowing that if Stephen had his druthers he would _definitely_ have had something to say to that.

“I didn’t know you and Houdini were chummy,” Tony continued conversationally, moving his tablet and glasses aside and taking up a mug of coffee from the serving tray next to him. When he looked over at him, it was with one brow poignantly arched.

“Shuri recommended I get in touch with him, keeping on top of my therapy and whatnot.” Tony’s nonplussed expression remained, and he marveled over what about their friendship he didn’t know. Aside from Peter, he didn’t really have a sense of where Stephen stood in the minds of the team. Stark’s presence and interest was new but clear evidence of some kind of regard. “At least it started that way,” he amended. “I got to enjoy spending time with him at the Sanctum. And it’s nice to feel normal in comparison to _someone_.”

Tony seemed more satisfied with that answer, but there was a lingering vigilance he wasn’t sure was directed at him, or at Stephen. It was in that moment, however, when he finally recognized the tang of tension in Tony’s scent, the subtle balance in the room he’d incidentally upset.

“Oh my god,” he muttered, staring over at Tony with a sudden blow of realization. “He’s an omega.”

Tony didn’t look startled by the statement, only mildly intrigued at the sudden shift in subject. More tired and concerned about Stephen than tired and concerned by him. “Yeah. He is.”

“Is that why you two get along?” he blurted, before the more sensible part of his brain could catch up and tell him to put a sock in it. Still, the puzzle piece of their odd synchrony had finally fallen into place. 

The question sparked a keen smugness in the engineer. “Define _get along_.”

“I mean, is that why you’re here? Helping him by having another omega in the room?”

The other man shrugged, and Bucky couldn’t help but be surprised. “It’s not so much having another omega as having anyone familiar. Strange’s got some nasty post-traumatic stress about waking up in hospitals after major trauma. Even if he’s not conscious, having someone else’s scent in the room helps keep his brain from jumping into a panic response.”

“He’s able to rest better when someone’s here with him,” Bucky summarized, and the mogul nodded.

“The afternoon shift is mine. Pepper and Rhodey backed me into it because they think it helps keep me out of the lab.” He hid a smile behind the rim of his mug as he took a long drag. “Doesn’t mean I can’t get work done, though.”

“Got any openings on the roster?” he asked.

Tony looked at him for a long moment as he slowly rested his mug on the crest of one knee. By necessity they had a working relationship, and by choice they might never get close. But that long look told him a great deal about how much trust could be placed in him.

“Wong could use a break - he’s been pulling doubles early in the morning,” he finally said. “I’m sure he’d be happy to portal you in so he doesn’t have to sit on his ass for six hours at a time when he could be off teaching tea-leaf-reading or some shit back in Nepal.” 

“I’m on it,” he assured, not a glimmer of doubt in his mind that Steve would understand his stepping in to help. Looking back to Stephen, and the untoward youth on his slack and resting face, he couldn’t help but wonder if Stephen would understand.

Or, for that matter, if even he himself understood.

۞ ★ ۞

Things going smoothly after Stephen’s recovery and their return to their old ways should have been the first indication that disaster was imminent. True, Bucky had been waiting for the day when he would trip into a bad memory, or set Stephen off in one of his own mysterious ways. Screwing up their budding friendship was a constant possibility, and after so long he’d forgotten his willful ignorance of that fact.

It had been the basic standing invitation for coffee, albeit with the assurance that Stephen was actually in town. Bucky had confirmed with him the night before, knowing full well that just appearing at the Sanctum didn’t mean he wouldn’t be let in, but it also didn’t mean that anyone was going to be home either. Luckily, as the brief response text had confirmed, Stephen had just gotten back from dimension-hopping yet again, and welcomed having some normal company.

Bucky still found that laughable. And charming.

When he arrived and was ushered in by the house, he didn’t have to think twice about taking the well-worn path to Stephen’s preferred study. Upon entering, however, his usual seat on the left corner of the couch was taken.

By Stephen himself, curled under a paisley blanket and beautifully dozing. 

He quieted his tread as he approached the couch, the swell of his heart making a tender pain in his chest. The sunlight streaming in from the windows highlighted Stephen’s every feature - from the silken white stretch of his neck where his head was propped against the couch back, to the deep, bruised shadows under his eyes, and finally the heavily bandaged arm resting tight over his stomach in a black sling.

He sat himself carefully on the stretch of couch by the omega’s hip and drank him in for a long, selfish moment. The wizard’s breathing was even and light, his scent unperturbed by vestiges of whatever dimension he’d just come back from, clean and normal. Before he realized the motion, Bucky reached out, nearly blindly, and brushed the strands of his bangs away from his forehead before carding his fingers through the snowy streaks at his temples.

A quiet grumble heralded Stephen’s waking, and Bucky found it disgusting how warmed he was by the fact that Stephen trusted the presence of his scent enough to not bolt awake. The blue of his eyes was nearly chrome in the sunlight when at last he opened them, the softness of his countenance at odds with the sharpness of the color.

“Sorry,” the other muttered, his voice still low and tired in his throat.

Bucky withdrew his hand from his hair, laying it on the plane of Stephen’s neck instead. He had intended to say “don’t be.” 

The words never made it.

The kiss that took their place had been the last thing on his mind, only inasmuch as he could never have articulated how long and how fixatedly he’d been waiting for it. It had become a running desire since first he realized his mood was consistently brighter when some piece of his clothing still smelled of the Sanctum, of Stephen.

It was still a careful kiss, watchful of the bandaged arm between them, even though the heat behind it was entirely reckless. But even if it meant a fiery demise, getting to smooth his tongue against Stephen’s was a carnal satisfaction worth dying for.

When he let go of his lips, Bucky didn’t stray far, resting their foreheads together as Stephen’s faltered breathing chased after the missing kiss. He watched, rapt, as long dark lashes fluttered back open as the brunet licked his lips.

A low hum preceded Stephen nuzzling against him, the sound a perfect portrait of the new closeness between them. “So I didn’t just dream that,” he murmured, fully awake but obviously in no hurry to rally. 

He licked his way back into Stephen’s mouth to confirm the lack of conspiracy.

Stephen had to break from him with a gasp this time, his one working hand weakly clasping at the back of his neck. Not necessarily to pull him away so much as to keep him close.

“I _like_ whatever this is,” the omega rumbled approvingly, but Bucky interrupted the inevitable conclusion to that statement, wrapping a very careful and understanding hand around the bandaged bicep. Stephen sighed, aggrieved and relieved all at once. “But this is… all I can manage for today, I’m afraid.”

“I’m not.” He nosed over the crest of a cheekbone, smirking. “This is way better than coffee.”

It wasn’t a hum that came up Stephen’s chest so much as a purr, and it drove straight into Bucky’s heart. “I’m not so sure about that. You might have to convince me,” he teased, and was already meeting him halfway when he dove in to rise to that challenge. They parted laughing, and Stephen ran a fragile index finger along the line of his jaw. “Alright, you have me on that one.”

“Well, that’s one step closer to just _having_ you, I suppose.” Those fey eyes looked at him for a long moment, but it didn’t feel like the assessment Stark had leveled on him. Stephen was looking at him like he was memorizing a text - drinking in every detail in case he should never be able to find it again. Preparing to lose him at some point, even before believing that having him was possible.

“Is this really what you want?” he asked, quiet. But the message of ‘ _do you really want **me**_ ’ came across loud and clear.

“I’ve read the fine print.” He’d managed to keep his tone serious, wanting to give deference to Stephen’s concern, but the following statement tripped on a laugh on its way out. “And let me tell you, your print is _fine_.”

“Oh gods,” Stephen groaned, rolling his head back as if he could escape from him even as a pained smile broke out over his lips. “That is one of the worst lines I have ever heard.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got others,” he promised, and that smile turned fond as Stephen looked ruefully back at him. He pressed a quick peck to those lips, lingering for a second, letting the smell of them together wash over him. It felt like it did when he and Steve were together, like coming home. “I figured I’d set the bar low and impress you by working my way up.”

“Oh? And how’s that working for you?”

“I’ll keep you posted.” Leaning back, he reached out to the tea tray that had been conjured to the coffee table, retrieving the _Strand Bookstore_ mug that Stephen adored and waiting as the man sat up marginally. “Coffee?”

“It’s a good start,” the wizard said, taking the mug with his good hand. “Although, you’ve already done better.”

They did end up having their coffee, eventually. But between Bucky eventually folding in behind Stephen, the omega leaned back against him, and the kissing that persisted throughout the explanation of how his left arm had been scorched by an incident with a particularly jealous dragon, it was early afternoon before they were finished.

When Bucky left, looking back fondly on the sunlight beaming down on that old house, the part of him that had never known how to approach an impossibly long life was peaceful. It wasn’t perfect, or settled.

But it was _possible_ , and that was more than enough to hold onto.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this piece is one of an ongoing series for this pairing (and the one it's building toward), but it's also a piece of a larger series of rarepair drabbles that I'm open to requests for! If you have an idea for a pairing, or an AU/prompt for one I have on the list of drabbles I'm planning on doing, you can shoot it my way over on [the tunglr](https://crypto-noms.tumblr.com/).


	3. Heaven Is In Your Mind

“It’s way too early in the morning for your shit, Barnes.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, turning slowly as he closed the door to his and Steve's compound quarters. “Can it until coffee, bird brain.” Resettling his knapsack over his shoulder, he glowered over at the pilot as Sam shuffled down the hallway in his Adidas sandals, his own fatigues backpack in hand. Undoubtedly as soon as he got back down to DC, he would pour himself onto his couch and not move for a few days.

He sure as hell planned on doing the same once he and Steve got back to Brooklyn. After the non-stop shit show that had been their most recent mission, they were all ready to disburse back to their homes and fall in well-deserved heaps.

 _Fuck_ inter-dimensional hoard invasions. Signed with(out) love, Bucky Barnes.

Surprisingly, Sam grunted an affirmative. And if even he was too tired to keep up the usual playful argumentation, they were all due for some serious time off.

When they got to the common area, the smell of coffee was already permeating the broad space. At just after five in the morning, the sky was just beginning to go pink outside of the floor to ceiling windows. A thank-you to FRIDAY was almost on his tongue when he realized the AI wasn’t the culprit for the fresh coffee.

It was Steve, who was tending a stovetop percolator like a watchdog, his eyes skimming his phone as he undoubtedly read through the morning news. He looked up when they entered, smirking like the bastard morning person he was. When the coffee stopped gurgling, he took up the pot and poured the fresh brew into two waiting mugs, which he and Sam heaved themselves toward immediately.

Rather than stopping there, however, Steve took the carafe out into the sitting area. Where he refilled his own mug, and the mug of their resident sorcerer, also unfairly awake for the hour and with the morning _New York Bulletin_ folded over his crossed knee. His voice was like liquid summer as he distractedly thanked Steve for the refill.

Stephen craned around to look at them, and while he was pale and exhausted as any of them, the sprightly light in his eyes made the early hour considerably more tolerable.

“Both of you need to stop,” Sam grumbled, glaring at them from the rim of his coffee mug. This time Bucky was willing to commiserate in his misery, given he also had no desire to be awake at the moment regardless of the fact that it would expedite him and Steve getting to go home. “It’s too early to be that put together.”

“I was under the impression you enjoyed early morning runs, Mr. Wilson,” Stephen said, half turning to read his paper out of the corner of his eye while keeping his smirk visible. “And given your military career, I would think you familiar with early mornings.”

“Being in the military doesn’t magically make you a morning person,” the guardsman groused. “It just makes you deal with being awake at ass o’clock in the morning.”

“Besides, with the three day work out we just had, I think we’re entitled in doing fuck all for a few days,” he added to Sam’s argument, taking a long draught from his coffee in the hopes it would make the time until their flight down to LaGuardia go faster. The sooner they got back to the city, the sooner he could drag Steve back to bed.

Stephen shrugged the one shoulder that had thrown an arm over the back of the couch.

Steve was watching him, and Bucky did too after a moment. Stephen’s lack of commentary about taking a break emphatic in an otherwise exhausted and rest-eager room.

Just as he was about to open his mouth, Tony’s voice echoed down one of the adjacent hallways. “I _never_ should have gotten you into period dramas, Platypus. You and Pepper are going to be the death of me. There's "life insurance swindle" written all over it.” 

The newly minted Avengers Bitching Hour was, apparently, right around 5 AM.

“Oh don’t start with that shit again, Tones. You got elbow-deep into _The Tudors_ during your last heat and couldn’t put it down. It’s not Pepper’s and my fault that we just went along with it,” Rhodey answered as the two walked in already armed with coffee of their own. Bucky was pretty sure he’d seen at least one coffee machine in every room where Tony spent any amount of time. Which meant pretty much all of them.

“Yeah, but both _The Borgias **and** Medici_ still won’t convince me to spend two whole ass days in bed like you two are scheming. Incentive to avoid it, actually. Too many muses for Machiavellian murder.” While the argument was a valid one, everyone in the room knew that Tony’s resistance was about as strong as his ankle at that moment - sprained, and already over-stressed.

“You need to be off that foot for a few days anyway, Tony,” Stephen interjected, returning the paper to the coffee table stacked with others of the day’s new periodicals. Once he was upright, he did a stunning job of inhaling his full mug of coffee in one long go, not entirely un-reminiscent of dissident German runaways he'd once met who could open their gullets and pour an entire pint of ale straight down. When he was finished, he pointed an accusatory finger at the engineer as he strode to the kitchenette and deposited his mug in the dishwasher. “Doctor’s orders. And I don’t mean mine.”

“Where are you off to in such a hurry, Merlin?” Tony asked, notably taking some of the pressure off his booted foot and leaning more heavily on the crutch he’d threatened to redesign no less than seven times the previous day. If James actually managed to get him to stay in bed, it would probably be all the way through production by the end of the afternoon.

“I have a summit at Kamar Taj I have to get to. I just wanted to stay for coffee and to see everyone off.” He looked down at the shattered Jaeger Bucky had yet to get a story for. “I really do have to get going.”

“Sure you couldn’t, you know, stay and give us all way faster lifts home?” Sam asked, and even Bucky was hopeful for a moment.

Stephen shook his head and gave a tired smile. “The meeting technically started twenty minutes ago,” he said apologetically. Steve seemed to startle, and Bucky felt something warm and pleased curl in his breast at the open curiosity and concern in his mate’s face. The two had shared at least one cup of coffee, after all. And he would bet his lunch money that they had been at it for more than twenty minutes. “With these sorcerers, fashionably late is all I can afford. Sorry.”

A quick portal and a blast of hot afternoon air from Nepal later, Stephen was gone.

“Workaholic,” Tony muttered under his breath, and the look Rhodey gave him as he hobbled toward the percolator implied either quick, gentle murder or prolonged, required-rest kidnapping. The latter was safer against lawsuit, but not impervious.

With a space on the couch vacated, Bucky made his way over to sit across from Steve and perched his pack on his lap. Nearly three days of full on battle had left even them exhausted, and the thought of having to attend to a diplomatic function made his head ache in sympathy. Dealing with pundits for his own civil rights had been hard enough, but having to do it as a part of his heroics gig? Preferably absolutely never.

“The guy took less vacation time than _you_ when he was a surgeon, Tony. What do you expect from him now that he’s Earth’s Mightiest Magician?” Rhodey said, giving a forsaking shake of his head as he followed his mate for more coffee. Something about the statement struck him, however.

“Wait, you knew about Stephen before?” he questioned, and James looked up from the pot and over to Tony. Something sad passed between them, a ship long passed in the night. Eventually, Tony nodded.

“After Leipzig,” Tony started, and the quiet in the room hit fast and hard, “Strange was on our list of neurological experts to contact for consultations on Rhodey’s injuries.”

“Was?” Steve asked.

Tony shrugged the arm that wasn’t leaning heavily onto his crutch, looking absently into the brown sugar he had yet to decide to add to his coffee. “Strange’s last passport check in Kathmandu had lapsed more than a month by that time with no further sign of him. The trail had gone stone cold, and I… didn’t refresh the search. It wasn't my priority."

“It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, Tony. We know that now.” The colonel clasped his oldest friend by the shoulder, both reassuring both the man and his mate. “Strange was totally off the grid. Even your tech _still_ can’t pinpoint Karma-whatever.”

Which was a point of contention all of them had been fielding with regards to the continued lack of safety for their sorcerer of late.

“Yeah,” Tony said, looking up and suspiciously determined, sugar forgotten. “One of the endless bees I have in my bonnet regarding what magic should not be able to do but definitely does.”

“Nope. Later.” Rhodes waved the billionaire’s attention back to his other guests, now assembled along the crescent couch and armchairs. “Right now, you need to sit your ass down before your attending and your magical physicians kick it.”

Rhodey wisely brought what was left of the coffee with him after Tony had hobbled himself into a chair. It took none of their inconsiderable intelligence to hone in on the contemplative look Steve was chronically sporting. The furrow of his brows could direct air traffic.

“He was also on the list,” Steve stated, his eyes distant and darting as he scanned the memory that surfaced in his thoughts. “The _Insight_ target list.”

They all looked at each other. Their possession of that information was established - they had all read Stephen’s file upon FRIDAY completing it. Thus some manner of fore-knowledge of the good doctor was somewhat unilateral.

“Did _he_ ever know that?” Sam asked.

Judging by their collective lack of surety, that intel had yet to be gathered.

۞ ★ ۞

Though it shouldn’t have been a surprise to him that there were things about Stephen he didn’t know, the fact that there was any surface information about him he didn’t already possess nagged at every surveillance and reconnaissance instinct he had. Reason and experience, on the other hand, told him that a man like Stephen didn’t have a veiled past for nothing.

He both loved him too much to hurt him by prying, and loved him too much to keep from reading up on what he could.

So as a compromise both for Stephen and himself, he made use of FRIDAY’s extensively curated public records archive to get a sense of Stephen and his history prior to his current, more magical self. The search far from disappointed, given Stephen had had a high profile civilian career prior to his now-unofficial disappearance and presumed death. 

There was even a picture of a very young Stephen Strange in the 90s, mid-stride on a Columbia soccer pitch at one of his club’s intramural games. Even clean shaven, there was no mistaking those focused blue eyes. And Bucky hated that though the reason behind it would remain mysterious, _Insight_ may have been right to fear him.

Yet more so he was grateful, far greater than words could express, that Stephen had never crossed paths with Pierce. That meeting, one way or another, would have done more damage than he could actually imagine. The fates had spared the world that hardship, but they had not spared Stephen in the end.

He hadn’t intended to go to the Sanctum the day he decided to do his homework, but by the end of even his preliminary digging, the desire had evolved into a need, all but cemented in his heart. He scarcely even remembered to shoot Stephen a warning text and grab a jacket against the morning rain before he was out on the streets making a beeline for Greenwich.

Predictably, the Sanctum was calm when he arrived, and he too had mellowed over the course of his walk. Though her windows appeared closed from the street, inside, the fresh Atlantic air and the smell of rain was permeating the upper galleries and foyer.

The door to Stephen’s study was open, the sound of a merry fire echoing in crackling laughter down the hall, beckoning him in.

He didn’t spot Stephen at first, having expected as usual to find him at his desk or huddled in the lounge by the fire. That day, he was settled on the floor in front of the lower cabinets along the wall of bookshelves, a wide cushion beneath him and stacks of books piled to his left.

“Am I interrupting important sorcerer business?” he asked hopefully, shucking off his coat and leaving it dutifully on the coat rack in the corner. The cloak lay out like a tablecloth on the coffee table in front of the fireplace, the picture of a fat cat content to let someone else in the house do all the work.

“Not at the moment,” Stephen answered, filing a handful of books back onto one of the cabinet’s interior shelves. His tone was warm, but distracted. The task, so far as he could tell, was far enough beneath his usual cerebral endeavors to not hold any tangible reason for his investment in it.

His scent, which Bucky had memorized by then, was all but normal. But that didn’t preclude such an intellectual person from being so trapped in their own mind that their body didn’t know to show any signs of strain.

“Do you want any help? Give those fine fingers of yours a break?” he tried again, padding closer and leaning against one of the shelves.

“Yes, well. My hands might not be good for microsurgery anymore, but at least I can do this.”

He frowned down at the sorcerer, increasingly perturbed by the off-hand manner of his responses. Compared to his usual painstaking attention, this repartee was a disturbing shade. “I looked you up by the way, speaking of your hands. Your surgeon days. You were foxy,” he said, watching a smile flash briefly onto Stephen’s face and mistaking it for a victory. “But I think I like you better now than back then.”

As quickly as it had come, the smile evaporated from his features. “You and most everyone else, I’m sure,” Bucky heard him murmur toward the books he no longer seemed interested in organizing. “Which no one fails to take the opportunity to remind me of.”

The sting of layered disappointment emanated from the other man. His previously tranquil, pleasant scent sharpened, and his usual coordinated posture even while sitting fell into disjointed angles. “Stephen I-,” he started, realizing he didn’t have the rest of the apology and left wishing he could have foreseen the landmine he’d unexpectedly tripped on. It was the first time he’d ever seen such an abrupt change for the negative in the man, and being the cause of it made him want to eat his own tongue to keep from doing it again.

Sighing, the mage merely shook his head, his tone un-accusing. “It’s not your fault I did a spectacular job of ruining my own life.”

The decision to go to him wasn’t even a decision - it was a compulsion.

“I’m sorry, Stephen.” He sat down on the floor as near to him as he could, putting a gentling hand to the small of his back. Stephen allowed it, his eyes fixated on the half-finished project in front of him. His hands rested, stiffly fanned, on the cover of the book he’d left in his lap. “I didn’t say that to hurt you. But I can tell that I did, and you deserve better than that from a friend.”

The mage didn’t refute him, but still didn’t look at him either.

“I meant it,” he continued, leaning in slowly and laying a kiss carefully on the frosted strands at his temples, “as a compliment,” and then on the crest of his cheekbone. Stephen blinked slowly, but didn't shy away from the touch. “For how nicely you’ve seasoned.”

Stephen huffed at him, but in a slightly less faraway rumble said, “ _Aged_ you mean.”

“ _Gracefully_ ,” Bucky insisted, moving on to the corner of his chin. The omega didn’t smell like he was in distress, at least not any longer. But something conflicted still lingered, a load his emotions were struggling to bear. “I’d feel like a cradle robber if I’d fallen for that dashing young surgeon.”

This time, the sorcerer chuckled, lazily curling his chin to nose along Bucky’s brow. “Luckily for you, I’m _considerably_ older than I was back then.” Bucky met his gaze, nose to nose. “Older than you now, even.”

“But,” he breathed, watching the line of Stephen’s lashes as he gently closed his eyes, “can you really be the cradle robber if you weren’t born until fifty years after the baby?” He plucked a longer kiss than he’d intended from those bow lips before he let the other respond. Stephen didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in hurrying along his answer, which was nothing more than a shrug.

“You may have to get used to the fact that time doesn’t always follow the rules in my presence.”

Pulling the book out from underneath Stephen’s hands, he put the old traveler’s journal aside and settled a warming palm on the inside of one lean thigh. The bookend to their first conversation rang like a a bell chime in his skull. He’d come so far since that day, and yet today he was reminded of how far there was yet to go.

“So when do we get to fast-forward time to the fun part, hm?”

Bucky wasn’t known for having the cleanest tongue in the service - hell, he’d grown up with _Steve_ , of course he didn’t - but he was tempted to blurt some truly creative strings of expletives when Stephen’s expression turned soft and apologetic. He refused to move his hand, but brushed his thumb in understanding circles over the loved, navy linen of Stephen’s trousers.

“I can do many things, but I can’t break time to avoid teaching a class on temporal magic,” he said with a knowing, ironic twist to his lips. “Wong would _actually_ take my head for that one.”

He nodded, sensing that for all Stephen was informing him they didn’t have the time today, it wasn’t a bid for him to leave. Quite the opposite, in fact, given Stephen leaned his inconsequential weight into Bucky’s shoulder. The load, it seemed, had finally become too heavy for even his prodigious energy reserves.

 _Will we ever have enough time?_ he wondered. Stephen’s moods were clearer to him the closer he got, but the well of struggle he could feel just below the man’s calm surface was a mystery to him. Its sources, its symptoms. How he could help.

“I’ll take whatever time I can get, then.” The brunet sighed against him, the first contented noise he’d made all day. The sound of the fire and the rain settled instead of silence, making room for other words and dreams. Bucky felt lulled by it, by true silence being kept at bay. 

But Stephen didn’t relax in its company, nor in his.

Nosing into Stephen’s hair, he closed his eyes, breathing him in and trying to feel out how he was supposed to proceed. They were… friends, it was true. There was chemistry abound between them. Chemistry, friendly knowledge, and a chasm also. And he would keep calling across the brink to him, would wait and hope until he got an answer back. That was perhaps all he could do, but he worried that it would be enough.

“Where are you, today?” he asked, without quite recognizing the words as his own. They sank in slowly, and he was purring comfortingly into the omega’s ear before he got an answer. When he did, Stephen’s voice was out to sea.

“Half-submerged in a river. In the rain.” Bucky wrapped an arm around his shoulders, hearing the faint echo of the words _to the day_ only by being so close to wounds that on this day would never not be fresh. It was why he had come over in the first place. “Waiting.”

Waiting for what, he didn’t dare say.

It was cruel, Bucky thought as he tried to swallow around the image of the man he knew, the man he loved, broken and mangled at the bottom of some ravine. Alone. It was so god damn cruel to make Stephen think about _time_ , teach about _time_ , today.

“Tell me what you need.” Stephen didn’t touch him back, but then again, Bucky didn’t imagine he really wanted to touch anything at all at the moment. But being touched, being here instead of _there_ , he hoped, would help.

“Friday.”

Bucky hummed at him, a thumb still drawing comfort on the crest of his thigh.

“I don’t have anything planned on Friday.”

There was a future in that sentence, at least, and not just a murky, rained-out present. Friday was only the day after tomorrow, and with Steve out of town until Saturday morning, he could finally devote time to the opportunity they’d both been missing. That maybe, at long last, they both needed.

“I’ll bring brunch,” he promised, the offer warming hope between both of them. “Tapas from Maya. That’s your favorite, right?”

Stephen nodded against his shoulder. “I’ll cover the mimosas. I don’t think they do to-go on the bottomless bubble service,” he offered in a fragile business-casual tone. “Just be sure to get enough for Wong.”

“I’m not bringing _Wong_ food for our brunch _date_ ,” he chastised, low and rumbling. It had the adverse effect he was hoping for, that instead of giving Stephen goosebumps and riling him up, it actually seemed to unwind something in him. The constant responsibility complex, mayhaps, that made him forget that it was okay for him alone to be enough of a reason.

“Fair enough.” Stephen shifted, pulling up the sleeve of his tunic to glance at his watch. 

It was time to let go, _again_ , but at least he felt like he still had Stephen’s hand in his now. The next embrace imminent, rather than imagined.

“Just… remember that you’re here today,” he asked, already heart sore at having to leave the other man alone today of all days. His own memories of drifting in the tides of the past were too near for him not to feel their danger. Danger Stephen himself had helped him through, and now didn't have time for help with. “For me.”

The Sorcerer Supreme rested a cold, scarred hand on top of his. “I’ll try.”

۞ ★ ۞

He arrived at the Sanctum just after noon, as soon as humanly - but not wizardly - possible, considering when the tequileria opened. Stephen opened the door for him personally, in the lean dark jeans he loved and a pullover that was feather soft when he put a hand on Stephen’s shoulders as they walked to the study.

It may have been the anticipation, or the haunting reminder of the week’s milestone, or some cunning undertone in Stephen’s scent that drew him into the wizard’s orbit so quickly, but after about five minutes into plating their food, he gave in to the urge and ended up hand-serving the omega forkfuls of his salmon and chilaquiles at intervals as they spoke. The initial thorn of self-loathing - his hands seemed to be having an especially tough time, enough to warrant Stephen sticking to a stemless wine glass for his mango mimosa - quickly evolved into the smiling delight Bucky would have assassinated just about anyone to keep.

 _Jesus_ , he thought first, listening to every word the man said and yet blindingly, jarringly fixated on the color of his eyes. Tourmaline green in the sunlight and labradorescent blue in the shadow of his hair. Then tigers eye, when after hours and hours of just sharing stories they moved to sit by the fire and share grappa glasses of țuică of all things, knee to knee as evening’s mantle settled in for the night. 

It was Stephen standing up to put on a record that got him. They had spent an entire afternoon trading intimacies over tea, and the țuică, while warming, had hardly gone to their heads. But the bend of his waist, and the precise flick of the record between the tips of his fingers, the smell of both of them, at last...

When Stephen sat back in the same place he’d vacated, letting their legs touch again, he thought, with less upstairs focus and more downstairs feeling, 

_**Fuck**_.

It was about the last cogent thought he had for quite a while, given the next second he had Stephen pinned beneath him against the couch, finally getting the coda to that make-out he’d never gotten to escalate.

And Stephen was far from just along for the ride. He had to laugh into the other man’s teeth when he realized that the brunet had already snuck a hand up his shirt and was palming at his abs while the other had already driven down the back of his pants to knead his ass.

Pushing himself up on his arms, he decided he thoroughly approved of the hooded, thorough once-over the mage gave him. He leaned his weight down into where their clothed cocks were resting together, not grinding so much letting the pressure build. 

When Stephen’s hand moved from his abs around to his back and his other regrettably left his ass, he reached back to stop him from rucking up his shirt further. The former neurosurgeon and world-class genius looked at him, endearingly befuddled. Bucky rolled his hips slowly, just to ensure that his desires were still clear.

“I’d like to see a magic trick,” he rumbled, and his cock _throbbed_ as he watched those chimerical blue eyes turn dark as Stephen’s pupils dilated. “Say, you getting us both to bed and _naked_. Right now.”

“The old fashioned way not good enough for you?” Stephen asked, just to be contrary. But the way he not-so-subtly folded a leg around Bucky’s waist belied just how long that contrariness was going to last.

“It’s the 21st Century. So sue an old dog for wanting some new tricks.”

Stephen grinned wolfishly at him, and before he could blink they were… elsewhere. Stephen’s bedroom to be precise, and though he’d only been there a couple of times, he recognized being engulfed in his scent immediately. He didn’t have the mind to revel in that as much as he would have liked, because the shock of full-body skin to skin contact sucked any cogent thoughts straight from his brain and down to his balls.

In reward, Bucky bit him, hard and high just under his chin where he wouldn’t be able to hide it. He felt the mottled grumble Stephen gave between his teeth, before he kissed the offense away.

He let his hands wander, grinding away what little was left between them and full hardness as he soaked in the sea of all that naked skin. Stephen wasn’t idle either, though his caresses were gentler by necessity.

Stephen’s mouth, on the other hand, was giving him terrible, wonderful, _awful_ ideas. And judging by the slow, evocative bite he gave his lower lip when Bucky leaned up just to look at him, that had been precisely his plan.

Plundering his tongue into Stephen’s mouth inspired the other man to wrap his arms around his shoulders, which was exactly what Bucky wanted him to do. Reaching beneath him and planting a hand at the base of Stephen’s spine, he lifted him off the sheets, and keeping him pressed into his own front, moved them up to the crown of the bed before flipping them over and luxuriantly leaning back against the headboard.

He didn’t quite let go of Stephen’s mouth even then, but when eventually he let him go, Stephen trailed a hand down his torso, eventually coming to weakly palm both their cocks. Bucky didn’t let him back away until he’d kissed the useless apology about his hands off his tongue, triumphant when Stephen instead busied himself with mouthing a hot wandering line down his body.

Being a lab rat was persistently one of his worst nightmares, but he was willing to reconsider some of his feelings on the matter when someone like Stephen Strange was laying reverence and appreciation into the muscle and bulk those experiments had given him. Every faint scar and muscle group he could get his mouth on he etched care into, whether he knew it or not. Bucky watched him, rapt, and hoping beyond hope that Stephen knew how loved he made him feel.

The tip of his cock was just budding a bead of precome when Stephen finally, _finally_ put his mouth where he wanted it. The heat of his tongue as it fanned his head into Stephen’s mouth was enough to make him take a hearty breath to keep from rushing him. It was the kind of opening salvo that told him one very important thing about his omega - the man absolutely knew how to suck cock, and was absolutely not above making art out of a blowjob.

He didn’t disappoint. He would suck hard on shallow thrusts and then withdraw only to lave attention on his shaft. He would treat him to a look through dark lashes sparingly, which Bucky was lucky given it made his balls tighten every god damn time.

He carded his fingers reverently through Stephen’s fringe as he worked, admiring the view of his lean, pale body stretched along the bed. The ripple of muscle along his back and the curve of his ass that Bucky desperately wanted to bury himself in.

Leaned back up against the headboard, his metal hand gripped the wood behind him as he narrowly resisted thrusting into that waiting mouth. As much faith as he had in his stamina from the experiments, his hormones had no interest in maintaining his dignity. He nearly howled into his teeth when Stephen sucked hard, not entirely convinced he was going to be able to resist nailing the other man to the bed. Even as buried in Stephen’s mouth as he was, the pheromones and his own desire to not be outdone were making him entertain other tactics.

Stephen’s weakened grip left the hilt of his cock, and that was all the warning he got before the former surgeon swallowed him to the root.

He came hard and fast down Stephen’s throat, tactics forgotten, the grip in the other man’s hair keeping him still unnecessary as the sorcerer swallowed without ceremony. When Stephen’s mouth left him and he sucked in a lungful of air, his lips were obscene, plumped and glistening.

He looked an ethereal wreck, but the look wouldn’t be quite complete without a good orgasmic gloss to his fey eyes.

Bucky gripped his chin and pulled him up, flipping the omega to lie beneath him as he wedged a knee between those long legs. He let Stephen frot against him as he swept his tongue along the seam of his smirk.

He was half tempted to ask where Stephen had learned that little trick, but he was equally sure the jealous, possessive part of himself wasn’t above acting on that knowledge and eliminating all prior witnesses. Instead he settled on returning the favor, keeping Stephen’s focus on the here and now as he took him in hand and stroked him torturously slowly.

Stephen canted his hips into the touch, and Bucky wondered when he’d been touched like this last. Sadly, he doubted whether the man's hands were strong enough to manage the task for any period of time, let alone long enough to get off.

Rather than pondering over any partners that might have helped him out, he focused on _being_ that partner. The prior chapters, closed or open, were not his business. Letting go of Stephen’s cock, he gently brushed his knees wide to fit around his shoulders as he quickly repurposed his mouth. Freeing up Stephen’s to let him moan quietly was worth the loss.

Though he had less of the showmanship than Stephen did, he had the advantage of both dexterity and force on his side in a way the mage didn’t. And sometimes the supplementary touches - squeezing a thigh, holding a hip, tracing fingers along the back of a knee - were what was needed just as much as the primary stimulation. Judging by the way Stephen leaned into the contact whenever he was able, that touch was welcome to the point of necessary.

By the time he had Stephen’s thighs twitching in the struggle for restraint, he knew the other was strung out enough to be easily distracted.

He wet his fingers in his mouth while he kept his prosthetic hand gently stroking Stephen’s shaft. The sorcerer twitched a bit when he put a fingertip to his entrance, but when he looked up he was greeted with a hungry, approving grin. He put his lips back to work suckling his way up to the head of his cock as he worked one finger into him and then the other. 

Stephen grunted, but it wasn’t an unhappy noise so much as a distracted one, and Bucky had every intention of keeping him out of his head for the rest of the night.

His spit wasn’t exactly as helpful as lube might have been, but it was just enough for him to get exploring as he tongued at Stephen’s slit, the pheromones in his precome going straight to his head. He knew how potent being with an omega could be - had been with more than a few in his lifetime - but the hormonal reverb between them was so intense that to his memory it only matched one other sexual partner in his vast experience.

That other sexual partner was, unironically, his mate.

When finally he kneaded down hard over Stephen’s prostate with the pads of his fingers, the man sat bolt upright from where he’d been crowded against the headboard, every muscle in his legs going taut undoubtedly in the effort not to kick him. It hadn’t exactly been a gentle exploratory caress, and it wasn’t meant to be. 

Cataloging the breadth of timbres Stephen could utter the phrase “ _oh fuck_ ” in was a hobby he was rapidly acquiring. Between his fingers and his mouth, he was able to wring out quite a variety as he worked. He included the barely-swallowed whines that definitely weren’t words but definitely were the _oh fuck_ that immediately preceded the writhing that was fighting orgasm.

The one disadvantage to having his face buried against Strange’s belly was that he didn’t get to watch his face as he came. But the scrabbling hands in his hair and on his shoulders, when paired with the punched moan he tried in vain to breathe through - his failure probably Bucky’s fault given he kept kneading at his prostate - told just as pretty a story. When he pulled off and pulled out, it was just in time to scoop an arm around Stephen’s slackening frame and lay him down amongst the pillows where he could catch his breath.

“ _How_ are you still single?” Bucky asked between toothy pecks to the brunet’s lips. Stephen looked unfairly decadent, tousled hair fanned out on the pillows he was heaped on. A heartbreaking smile under sated eyes. “ _I_ have an encyclopedia of excuses. But _you_ …”

The former neurosurgeon hummed into his mouth when Bucky couldn’t resist putting his lips on that smile. It was just a little cracked around the edges, and he wanted to lick those self-conscious wounds clean. “You are in the minority for finding me attractive in spite of my prominent personality flaws.” 

He felt giddy, like he’d finally gotten a shot with the kind of smart-as-a-whip bombshell he’d always run after, and he nosed under Stephen’s chin and purred at him with every ounce of approval he could muster to defy that sentiment. “What can I say?” he said, kissing hard enough at the line of Stephen’s throat for the other man to pant desperately and keep him pulled close with one faintly trembling hand grasping his shoulder. The hand was weak, but the arm around him surprisingly strong. “I always did love the troublemakers.”

In spite of the phenomenal chemistry between them and the prodigious amount of post-coital chemicals in their brains, Stephen somehow still managed to find it within himself to be pensive. When Bucky looked at him he found it startling, perhaps on the verge of unsettling, the way Stephen could manage a thousand-mile stare while his eyes could be tracing a thousand of his features a second. He could exist in two places at once, at different ends of the universe when he really wanted to. But when it came to coexisting with doubt and genuine feeling at the same time, he was silent.

Sex was easy for him. Uncomplicated, or at least he offered to keep it that way.

Relationship, whatever its form, was the precise opposite.

So he kept pushing kisses into Stephen’s skin, using his stamina to get the upper edge against what little fight the magician might have had left. When Stephen finally fell off to sleep, with Bucky spooned up against his back and drawing senseless designs into his skin with the tip of one index finger, he whispered the three words that had been torturing him. And that he was sure tortured Stephen, who seemed to be torn between believing them un-sayable, and wanting them all the same.

For now only the night and the house would hear him, and their silences were already all-knowing anyway.

۞ ★ ۞

It wasn’t the least dignified way to wake up, heavily spooning and weakly humping an eagerly consensual hook up from the night before, but it also wasn’t his proudest moment either. The real problem, he realized as he buried his nose into Stephen’s locks, was that the drive to mate him hadn’t been sated by their first little encounter. It was rampant, banging against the forefront of his mind. About as far from satisfied as he could get.

His intention had been to behave himself, to see what a bit of actual romance looked like between the two of them. The answer, unsurprisingly in retrospect, had been: what romance _usually_ looked like between two sane and consenting adults who didn’t hang onto puritanical ceremony just for bragging rights and a case of blue balls.

Bucky nuzzled in close, letting the beta and protector inside of him revel in his partner, safe, sated, and sleeping in his arms. Stephen’s lean frame fit perfectly in the hollow against his chest. And if he purred softly in contentment, it was surely only to help Stephen sleep. 

An eventual subtle shift and a flutter along Stephen’s flank heralded him waking also, and Bucky’s decision was all but made for him as the slim brunet subtly canted his hips and leaned back into him.

“Good morning,” he said to the skin on Stephen’s neck, pleased at the goosebumps that raised on the man’s forearm.

Strange mumbled an affirmative, both half asleep and halfway back to his bedroom voice.

Though it was nearly painful to let go of the warmth cloistered between them, Bucky leaned back to drink in the sight of his body in the pale morning light. His usual regal composure was nowhere to be found in the soft pile of curves and curls he’d been reduced to, but there was palpably more magic in the air given every visible square inch of his skin.

Brushing the back of his knuckles up Stephen’s spine, he was surprised when he didn’t shudder, and instead just seemed to let himself ooze into the bedding. Without needing to ask, he knew instinctively that this was not Stephen’s normal morning-after response. And while he had him warm and willing, he was going to make full use of every stolen moment.

“You know,” he said, casual but quiet in deference to the morning din that hadn’t even hit Greenwich yet, “I just about tied you down and had my way with you last night.”

Stephen settled his head further up on his pillow so he could peer over his shoulder at him. “Oh? And what stopped you?”

“I was trying to be chaste.” Stephen justifiably laughed at him as Bucky palmed one of the globes of his ass, letting his thumb trace down the crease.

“And when did you decide better of that? Before or after the blowjob?”

Leaning up and over him, he breathed a kiss onto his graying temple. “I didn’t get to see you,” he stated, knowing that Stephen would catch on to exactly what he meant with no more than that. “I want to.”

The magician nodded against him on an eager inhale, wagging a hand in the direction of a nightstand drawer that sprung open, untouched. He retrieved the bottle of organic lube and slicked his fingers as Stephen stilled to let him work.

Bucky let him lay like that for a while, stretched across vermillion sheets and lowly blushing as he was fingered open. He had faint smatterings of birth marks that stood starkly out against his skin in the morning light, and he traced all that he could reach with his tongue until he felt Stephen’s walls begin to go lax around his fingers.

Withdrawing carefully, he pulled at Stephen’s bony hip to roll him over onto his back before shuffling up between his legs until they fell loosely around him. He took himself in hand to help with the guiding process, pushing in slowly until he was certain he’d remain seated in the omega’s heat.

The pant Stephen gave would have been a moan if the man had put any voice behind it. As it was, he stayed just barely quiet as Bucky raked both hands up over his nipples. 

He sympathized with the hurt sound he finally wrung out of the sorcerer when he kissed his mouth open so he could swallow that noise down whole. It was impossible to resist the temptation to coax his way in when the mental image of Stephen Strange biting his lip to keep himself quiet burned a line straight from the crown of his spine to where he was buried to his slowly waxing knot in the omega.

Keeping his hips gently rocking, he let Stephen cling to him even as he felt the meat of one of his thighs quiver against his side. The quick and dirty fingering from the night before had probably left him tender, but also sensitive to the pleasurable end of being full in the best possible way.

Stephen was charged like a live-wire, and Bucky was debating just how slowly he would set him off until he broke loose from his already faltering control…

When his alarm went off.

The alarm that was meant to get his ass out of bed so he had time to shower and drive to LaGuardia to pick up Steve. So they could go on their Saturday ride and pop down to DC to Sam’s monthly barbecue. So he could help he and his mate center themselves like they did after every mission apart.

The alarm that was _not_ meant to drag him away from the omega he wanted to pin to the bed, mark up… and maybe ask to come along.

He bit Stephen’s lower lip, distracting him just enough while also letting him breathe, as he reached out blindly to the phone his magic had undoubtedly relocated onto the nightstand, until his bumbling fingers dismissed the notification. Or snoozed it. Frankly, he didn’t care.

Much as he would have loved to pull Stephen apart slowly and build himself up to orgasm so they could come together, he now didn’t have the time. 

Folding an arm between Stephen’s so he could fold his fingers through the hair at the crown of his head, he kicked his hips forward. Hard enough to feel, but not hard enough to hurt if Stephen’s emphatic “ _fuck yes_ ” was anything to go by.

When his knot slipped in, he leaned back out of the comfortable circle of Stephen’s arms, keeping one hand carefully nested in his hair as he gripped at a narrow hip bone with the other. He kept his gaze fixed on the flat expanse of Stephen’s stomach, and the flushed length of his lovely cock where it lay leaking.

If he had to look at Stephen’s face and see the pleasure he was pulling up from his lungs, there would be no joyride and no barbecue for him that day. Whatsoever. Instead, he kept his mind where he could anchor it on the lovely lithe body he could see and feel heating with arousal. 

But he was so focused on getting Stephen over the edge and back to his set schedule that it took a trembling hand _pushing_ at his abs to stop the drive of his hips. When he looked up, he couldn’t tell who had come closer to coming - Stephen, or himself.

With lips pinked from both him and Bucky biting them, frustrated and nearly overwrought tears just a jostle away from spilling onto dark lashes, and a truly uncanny focus in his blazing glasz eyes, the omega was a picture worth a thousand words.

But the words perched on a too-understanding, crooked smile were not the words he wanted to hear.

He let go of Stephen’s hair only so he could cradle the plane of his cheek as the tattoo of their breathing slowed in spite of the hot weight of their bodies remaining connected.

“You have to go.” It wasn’t a question or a command. Merely a statement, from the voice of the depths of the ocean, barely beginning to go hoarse.

Bucky kissed him hard, the suddenness of the desire to cry for him, _for them_ , wavering between his lips. He _wanted_ this, so very badly.

But it wasn’t his. Not the time, not the sex, not the omega.

Not yet.

“It’s alright. I understand.” He didn’t want the clemency Stephen’s voice purred into the fading kiss. He didn’t want the excuse.

He wanted the whole fucking kit and caboodle, and to not have to make this choice ever again. Steve, Stephen, himself. And every could-be between them.

He sucked in a deep breath, leaning back up and pushing his hair up and out of his face as he ran the palm of his real hand down the length of the magician’s torso. He despised with every ounce of his being that his skin was already cooling, and a perfectly pleasurable job left criminally unfinished.

Gripping the root of his cock with his other hand, he kept that skin to skin contact as long as he could as he pulled carefully out, petting Stephen’s lean side even as he involuntarily flinched. Going hard and careening into blinding orgasm was one thing, but getting ridden hard and put away wet was another entirely. Leaving his mate to the latter rather than the former left a bitter taste in his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he said weakly, brave enough at least to face his barely-loved lover.

“I’ll be fine,” Stephen assured as he sat up gingerly. Folding his legs beneath him, he leaned up to kiss Bucky on the temple before standing up and padding not quite effortlessly to his discarded clothes. He walked past his old clothes, and missed the real apology behind Bucky’s words as well.

“I just… it’s complicated,” he said softly, knowing that logically the confliction he felt was earned, but the one true strife he felt was concern over how to make a triad with his mates - or _desired_ mates - when the two men he loved barely knew each other. “Steve is my mate, you know?” he continued lamely, almost wincing at the ineptitude of that statement at expressing his thoughts. 

Stephen looked at him, his face surprisingly open and cutely confused as he stood with his arms down the sleeves of a new tunic, having ceased to bother to pull it over his head. Regardless of obviously seeing no need for shame, Bucky found himself helplessly distracted by the light purple mark he’d left at his waist the night prior. 

“I know,” he said, concern coloring his tone and bringing Bucky’s eye-line back up. “My expectation was never to make you choose, Bucky. I care about you very much and I appreciate whatever it is we do have and to whatever extent it goes. But endangering your bond is not my design.”

He couldn’t decide if he wanted to kiss his blatant lack of self-worth away, or shake sense into him. He’d tried the kissing last night and into that morning, and he was realizing that some kind of continued emotional shaking might be his last recourse.

 _You’re not just some fling_ , he thought, with final and jarring clarity. _I’m not worried about losing him - I’m worried about losing you_.

And he hadn’t the faintest idea how to put that into the right words.

When Stephen kissed him off in the foyer, he remembered a scene from one of the last movies he ever saw Stateside before the war. Where the loneliest socialite in the world ran a gin joint, and the world still hadn’t been big enough to keep the girl he loved from walking right in the door. The only thing that gave him comfort as he walked out to get Steve’s bike from the Sanctum’s thistle garden in the alley was that unlike Bogie, he’d gotten to kiss his lover goodbye.

And kisses goodbye, in his experience, at least indicated a welcome return should one ever occur.

He knew the drive to LaGuardia by heart, and let his senses get buried in defensive driving rather than let his mind dwell on an empty, unmade bed in Greenwich village.

Given it was one of the Avengers fleet flying Captain America back in, security all but waved him through onto the private sector of the tarmac, his clearance unquestioned once Steve’s bike tags were run. _From terrorist to world-class hero_ , he mused as he watched the plane land and taxi in. He pulled off his helmet as he waited for Steve to deplane, thinking back to his final hearing and the weight that had been taken from his shoulders once his probationary order had officially been lifted.

And a sorcerer who had been there to bid him good luck, before disappearing to hide from the revelry that had been earned with his hand in it.

“Wow, _you_ smell good,” Steve said, looking him up and down as the blond strode toward him over the runway. He wasn’t more than a few yards away, but his decision not to linger at the Sanctum and shower obviously carried his activities well enough.

_Well well_ , he thought. _So much for the walk of shame_. 

Not that Steve hadn’t known him to come home smelling like _a lot_ of people, but within memory Bucky had no recollection of him ever being outright complimentary. Before the war, the little alpha had been dour, self-doubting, and in a small part envious of the beta’s comparative success. Bucky hadn’t exactly been chaste since coming back to his mind, the 21st Century, and to Steve, but he hadn’t been painting the town red either. 

“It's Stephen,” he said simply, with the absolute surety that lived in every fiber of his being. The smell was still rattling around in his brain too, and all he could think about was how empty their rooms in Bay Ridge, for all their smelling like the two of them, would feel without those last notes. The tang of juniper incense, warm pine smoke, indigent parchment dust, and the unmistakable brogue of genuine indigo. “It’s him.” 

Steve stared at him like he’d grown a second head, the bafflement adorably evident on his face. “The wizard?” he asked, and Bucky prickled at the remark but stifled the reaction. The man wasn’t even their mate yet and he was already protective of him. “Really?” 

“I’m serious.” He didn’t elaborate. Elaborating would leave room for argument, and he didn’t want Steve to talk him out of it. He wanted him curious enough, _challenged_ enough, to go and see for himself. 

Because if one thing was true of Steve Rogers, it was that he never took any challenge sitting down. 

“It’s not just because he’s following up your therapy with Shuri?” Steve asked, straightforward and gentle. Bucky wouldn’t have allowed _any_ other follow-up question save that one - this was a valid concern, especially from his mate and his long-time friend. The man who had pulled him up to the surface from Hydra’s frozen depths, and whom he had pulled up out of the mires of doubt and frustration more times than he could count. He owed Steve an answer in this, at the absolute least. 

“Shuri told a lot of people to keep their doors open for me,” he said with a shrug, handing Steve his helmet as he finally stepped in close. At least having one mate’s scent in his proximity did wonders for his lingering woes. “You know I went to Strange to talk because he seemed the least likely to be freaked out if I had relapses or episodes. And Shuri is still my therapist.” Steve nodded as he slung his duffel and situated it solidly over his shoulders before clipping on his helmet. “Stephen and I originally just talked shop. Had the kind of normal conversation I haven’t gotten to have a whole hell of a lot in the last eighty years. You should think about it yourself.” 

Steve smiled at that, though his expression still hinted at mild disbelief. Whether in Stephen or what _normal_ conversation _with_ Stephen even looked like, he didn’t know. 

“Originally?" 

Bucky smirked at him. “Yup.” 

When he refused to break the silence, Steve sighed, aggrieved as he sat behind him. “Jerk.” 

He flashed his teeth over his shoulder at Steve. Slow and kind, spelling out in crow’s feet the quote they’d been volleying back and forth for so many years. Careful to angle his head to keep their helmets from knocking, he gave the blond a quick kiss before handing him his sunglasses. 

“I think you’d be pleasantly surprised,” he finished at last. 

“Why’s that?” 

“Because trust me Steve, even for all we’ve been through and that we are, we’re not the weirdest thing that’s walked through his door _this week_.” He kicked the bike into gear, letting the reality of that opportunity sink in. He hadn’t realized it at first, hadn’t even recognized that he’d acclimatized so easily to the persistent weirdness in Stephen’s life because of how easily Stephen had accepted his own. 

But there it was, a fundamental effortless acceptance where outside of Steve, he’d believed that to be impossible. 

When he stopped at the exit gate to the private runways and Steve slowly leaned into him and wrapped his arms around his waist, he offered one more morsel of bait. “You know how nice it’s felt to be able to be _us_ , who we are _now_ and not who we were then, and establish a new normal for ourselves?” 

The blond alpha waited him out after giving a minute nod. 

“He deserves that too.” 

_And he’s already given enough for me to feel that way with him. For me to not be able to stand the thought of leaving him alone with his impossible normal_. 

He let Steve think about that on the four hour drive down to Alexandria and Sam’s dangerously soul ribs. When they arrived they were too swept up in the usual pandemonium of the man’s patio dinners to talk things over in any detail, but later when they settled down onto Sam’s sleeper sofa and predictably ended up in their usual pillow-talk, he knew at least some manner of progress had been made when Steve quietly asked for Stephen’s number at the end of the night. 

Steve, old fashioned love as he was, never asked for someone’s private number unless he planned on _doing_ something with it. 

What would come of it he had no idea, but there was still enough of Stephen’s scent on him that with Steve’s scent around him completing the picture, he fell asleep dreaming of the heaven that could be the three of them. 

If they could all just get their shit together. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky will not die of blue balls, I promise. He's just going to start working overtime on getting his dumbass mates together. This chapter can be read parallel to the gap between Chapters 2 and 3 of _Going In Circles_ , but to that end, this set of vignettes is now complete. Don't worry, the unresolved sexual tension will get resolved between these three... Sometime.
> 
> This piece is one of an ongoing series for this pairing (and the one it's building toward), but it's also a piece of a larger series of rarepair drabbles that I'm open to requests for! If you have an idea for a pairing, or an AU/prompt for one I have on the list of drabbles I'm planning on doing, you can shoot it my way over on [the tunglr](https://crypto-noms.tumblr.com/).


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